Sinope was the dominant Greek colonial power on the Black Sea's southern coast throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BC, controlling lucrative trade routes in timber, iron, and the salted tuna for which the region was commercially famous across the Mediterranean. The city maintained enough political independence to strike its own silver coinage continuously even as Persian influence pressed along the Pontic coast — a monetary autonomy that would end definitively only with Mithridates VI's annexation in 183 BC.
The SNG BM Black Sea reference places this squarely within a well-documented civic series, though die studies have identified considerable variation across the emission period.
Sinope was the dominant Greek colonial power on the Black Sea's southern coast throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BC, controlling lucrative trade routes in timber, iron, and the salted tuna for which the region was commercially famous across the Mediterranean. The city maintained enough political independence to strike its own silver coinage continuously even as Persian influence pressed along the Pontic coast — a monetary autonomy that would end definitively only with Mithridates VI's annexation in 183 BC.
The SNG BM Black Sea reference places this squarely within a well-documented civic series, though die studies have identified considerable variation across the emission period.